GRASSROOTS POKER

GRASSROOTS POKER=

by Bob Ciaffone

I pride myself as a guy who looks ahead. Back in= the 1980’s, I had a number of discussions with Mike Sexton and others abo= ut what televised poker could do for the game. We knew it would be big. But wh= at was not foreseen back then––at least by be––was what would happen when televised poker was combined with internet poker-playing.= It is this marriage that is stoking the fire. Both of these are very helpful individually, but together, they are practically miraculous.

Just about everyone in the country knows that po= ker is booming these days. You can see it in the enormous number of entrants and h= uge prize money in the World Championship. You can see it in the more than 200 internet poker sites. You can see it in brick-and-mortar cardrooms spreading lots of no-limit hold’em money games and tournament events. You can s= ee it in televised tournaments on several programs. But these eye-catchers are only the tip of a large iceberg. Poker is exploding in grassroots America= like you wouldn’t believe.

I would like to take a closer look at the base o= f that iceberg, the grassroots developments that are both pushing and being pulled= by the poker explosion. A number of scenarios I will talk about are of uncerta= in legality; it is hard to know exactly what the law says. Frankly, if you have been around gambling as long as I have, you pay just as much attention to h= ow the law is being interpreted and enforced by the authorities in judging wha= t is okay behavior in a certain spot. From what I’= ve seen, most poker events are being given little scrutiny these days, as long as you are not running a cardroom with money games and having them = wide open for the public to play.

I just got back from a Fl= orida visit (I have relatives in Bonita Beach, near Fort Myers). On the front page of Secti= on B in the December 11^th Bonita Banner, there are several pictures of people playing poker, with the caption, “They know when to hold’em.” The people are playing in a tournament at Breland Cues and Poker Supplies. There is a $20 buy-in event every Sunday at 2 pm. The winners do not get cash, just gift supplies. Poker tournaments are far more popular than poker money games with the general public, and less susceptibl= e to having their acceptability questioned.

Using a poker tournament to promote a business i= s very common. In Michigan, I know quite a few bars that run tournaments. No entry fee is charged, and prizes are given. These events are very popular throughout the state. I exp= ect that they do not contravene any state law, because the player is not being charged to play. However, I have been told that the Michigan Liquor Commiss= ion frowns on them.

I have heard that a large group of taverns in Co= lorado have grouped together to run a tournament league, with some entries awarded= to the World Series of Poker to the leading players at the end of the season. = I am sure a lot of other states would like to use this nice promotional concept.=

In = Detroit (and no doubt throughout the country), various poker clubs have sprung up. Perhaps the most prominent of these in my area is the Metro Poker Club. This association even has a website, = www.met= ropokerclub.com, where you can see a picture of tournament star Phil Hellmuth paying them a visit. The club has a private membership, with a one-time fee of $100 to jo= in. A blurb on the site says, “We are an elite, non-profit, members only sporting club registered with the State of Michigan.” A little fu= rther, the purpose of the club is explained as, “Our mission= is to give area players (21 and older) a chance to compete amongst themselves = to win seat packages (tournament buy-in, airfare, hotel, etc..) and represent = the Metro Poker Club in WPT, WSOP, and other major events around the world.R= 21; Private poker clubs featuring tournament events are springing up nearly everywhere like mushrooms after a rainstorm.

This grassroots kind of poker is now receiving national attention. Looking at the December 21, 2004 issue of USA Today, we= see poker as the centerpiece story. Just to be clear, that is not the sports section or some other section, that is page one. There is a picture of a teenager playing poker, with the caption, “Poker at an early age. Not just another teen fad.” It shows th= at more teenage boys say have gambled than have consumed alcohol or smoked. (Judging by the percentage figure given, this also exceeds the number that have admitted having sex.) If something is= more popular than drinking or sex with young people, that is popular indeed! The article has a quote from someone that publishes a po= ker magazine, saying “I get e-mails from kids all the time.” (Yes, = it is our own Barry Shulman being quoted.) I could say the same thing myself regarding poker rules questions and lesson inquiries.

There is plenty of poker action that is less org= anized then some of the stuff we have been looking at. For example, there is a cou= ple that cares for my two dogs when I’m away at a poker tournament. One d= ay, the man, Mike, told me, “I’m going to play in a hold-it tournam= ent tonight.” One of their neighbors was having about 25 people over for a block poker tournament. Turns out each person paid $50 to enter, so there w= as some decent prize money available. Mike took third place––and now kn= ows the game is called “hold’em.”

Frankly, I have far too much material of this na= ture to put in one or two articles. It is obvious that the desire to play poker = has far outstripped the ability of anyone to try to stop it. We are creating the nucleus for a whole generation of poker players. But to be frank, I am uncomfortable anytime there are laws on the books that could conceivably be used to prevent any of these harmless mainstream poker activities from occu= rring.

I still have items in my files that would shock = many people. One shows police raiding some small poker game in a Florida mobile home park, confiscating= less than a hundred dollars, and trying to charge the players with illegal gambl= ing. (The net result was the players calling themselves the “Largo Seven” and appearing with Johnny Carson on the “Tonight Show.”) I still have an item in my files showing a police raid on a D= ads Donut Shop in California because some people were playing chess for fifty cents a game. There still = can be an isolated incident of police pettiness.

On the more serious side, we had a great poker tournament in Lafayette, Louisiana in the late eighties called = the Cajun Cup, that ran for three years with no problem. B= ut in the fourth year, the organizers were forced to close it down about halfway through, because otherwise there was going to be a raid by federal agents. I bring this up because the local district attorney had to work hard to convi= nce the feds to let him close it down with a phone call, rather than a federal = bust. This apparent willingness to risk lives in a raid is sometimes the mentalit= y we poker players have to deal with on the part of law enforcement. So lets cha= nge the laws, if need be, so grassroots poker does not get Bushwhacked someplac= e in a burst of fundamentalist zeal. Let the poker boom proceed in peace, withou= t having to worry about a nasty knock on the door. Change the laws.